Net Neutrality Links

YouÃ¢â¬â¢ve got to hand it to FCC General Counsel Sam Feder. His opinion that supposedly Ã¢â¬ÅclearsÃ¢â¬Â Commissioner Robert McDowell to participate in the AT&T takeover of BellSouth probably wasnÃ¢â¬â¢t what Chairman Kevin Martin had in mind.

The idea of the exercise was to put pressure on McDowell to jump into, presumably on the side of AT&T, and force Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein into a corner.
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FederÃ¢â¬â¢s opinion said nothing that should cause the Commissioner to change his view. The opinion made a tepid case at best for Commissioner McDowell to participate. Feder seemed to go out of his way to stress that it was McDowellÃ¢â¬â¢s decision to participate. The Feder memo said it was a Ã¢â¬Åvery, very close callÃ¢â¬Â whether McDowell should take part, and that reasonable parties could disagree on a decision.

Net Neutrality Links

The unseemly political pressure to try to force FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell to participate in the AT&T takeover of BellSouth is increasing with each hour. So far, McDowell has stuck to his decision not to participate because he recently represented CompTel before the Commission and because of ethics concerns from the Virginia Bar Association.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has sent a letter to Capitol Hill saying heÃ¢â¬â¢s asked the General Counsel, Sam Feder, to determine whether itÃ¢â¬â¢s possible for McDowell to participate, citing a 2000 precedent of then-Chairman Kennard having been authorized to break a 2-2 tie. AT&T sent a letter to the Commission saying that competitors are holding up the merger despite all that AT&T has been willing to concede. These two items, both dated Dec. 1, are of course related. Martin wants the merger, as does AT&T. They are also related in that each makes claims that donÃ¢â¬â¢t hold up under further scrutiny.

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We have defined Net Neutrality all along as applying to the last mile. We donÃ¢â¬â¢t want any network provider to make a decision for a customer on how well a service or application will function based on a financial arrangement between the network company and the provider. ItÃ¢â¬â¢s that simple. We have always endorsed the ability of companies to charge customers, whether residential or commercial, for the bandwidth they use. We wish the market were more competitive, but thatÃ¢â¬â¢s another story. No one has talked about rates in terms of cost recovery. We use the term non-discrimination.

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